In most instant lottery ticket games, a set of tickets is imaged with play or prize value indicia under a scratch-off coating according to a predetermined prize structure. Typically, the prize structure consists of one or more large value prizes, a number of lesser value prizes and a large number of tickets that are not prize winners. The prize values in a game are distributed randomly on the tickets so that, in theory, each player has an equal chance to win one of the prizes. In the United States, lottery ticket manufacturers or vendors typically produce lottery games that are divided up into pools where each pool has a prize structure. Each pool is then divided into a number of packs where each pack contains a preset number of lottery tickets. For example, a game might have several million tickets where each pool contains 240,000 tickets and each pool contains 800 books of 300 tickets. However, games can be organized in different ways and can, for example, consist of a set of packs not grouped into pools. Usually each individual pack of tickets, also termed books, is packaged by the vendor for delivery to the lottery administration or lottery sales agents.
The term “image” is a term that is commonly used by lottery ticket manufactures or ticket vendors to indicate a system whereby variable indicia including ticket symbols such as play indicia and validation numbers are transferred onto the instant ticket as opposed to, for example, display printing which is the typical method of applying a common graphic to all the tickets in a game. Although these symbols are not technically printed on the ticket, it is common to use the terms imaged and printed interchangeably. The invention as described below is independent of whether symbols are imaged or printed.
As part of the manufacturing process, the vendor images ticket identification data which can include the game number, pack number and ticket number on each lottery ticket along with other information that includes a validation number and a bar code. The barcode typically represents both the inventory information and validation number and is generally imaged on the ticket back. The data on each ticket, including the ticket identification data, the play indicia, the barcode, is typically generated by computer programs and inkjet imaged on each ticket. All of this data including the game play data, the ticket identification data and the validation number is imaged on the ticket and is subsequently covered by a scratch-off coating. The lottery tickets are then sent to a state lottery administration for sale. For these types of lottery tickets, one function of the validation number is to reduce fraudulent redemptions where the ticket has been altered. The validation number is usually an encrypted number that serves to uniquely identify the lottery ticket and therefore the play data on that particular ticket so that the lottery administration can determine if, in fact, the ticket is a winner when it is redeemed by a player.
This method has been termed a ‘single pass security’ process where there is a defined relationship between the ticket identification data and the validation number imaged on each lottery ticket. This relationship may algorithmic. Or this relationship may be a file or a set of files that relate the ticket identification data to the validation number. In ‘single pass security’, there is a definite method to determine the ticket's value based on either (1) the ticket identification data or (2) the validation number. For example, one could use the ticket identification data as an input to a computer program or algorithm to determine the ticket's value. One could also use the ticket's validation number as input to determine the ticket's value.
In order to improve security, a manufacturing technique termed ‘dual security’ was developed to eliminate the relationship between the ticket identification data and the validation number. In this method, the ticket identification data imaged on the ticket, specifically the pack number, cannot be used to determine the ticket's value; however, the validation number could still be used to determine the ticket's value. Lottery tickets printed using this technique have a pack number imaged on the tickets that is different than the pack number originally assigned by the game generation program used in the lottery ticket programming process. This security process was designed to irreversibly break the relationship between the pack number and the validation number imaged on the ticket. Thus, knowledge of the game generation program or its results can not be used illicitly by someone having access to this information to select winning lottery tickets before they are sold.
One approach to dual security is to employ a shuffling routine, using a shuffle key, for example, as an input variable, to independently shuffle the pack numbers in a pool after they are computer generated by the lottery ticket programming process. The result is a set of pack numbers imaged on the tickets that are unknown to those having access to the game generation program. In this approach, the shuffle keys are not recorded or maintained by the vendor's programming staff and as a result, the dual security is essentially irreversible. Furthermore, the possibility of anyone on either the vendor's or the lottery administration's staff of being able to illicitly identify winning lottery tickets by using the pack and ticket number imaged on the tickets is substantially reduced.
However, dual security has significant disadvantages in that the process does not permit the vendor to provide reports or services that rely on the pack number as the key to the value of the pack. For example, it does not allow the vendor to reconstruct listings of tickets from the imaged pack number in order to adjust for manufacturing variances. Nor does it allow the vendor to provide reports of the aggregate value of the shipment of tickets to the Lottery. In both cases, neither the vendor and specifically the vendor's programming system nor the lottery administration has a method to determine the value of a set of tickets based on the imaged pack number.